Saturday, March 22, 2014

How One School System Helped Stop Third Party Collection of Student Data

The Great Neck School District is not
about to release any information on any Great Neck students to InBloom nor to
any other such third party provider. The Board of Education’s decision against
releasing any such information came at the recommendation of Dr. Thomas Dolan,
superintendent of the Great Neck Public Schools. And even though just last week
Governor Andrew Cuomo and his panel on education announced that they would no
longer support any student information to InBloom, Dr. Dolan told the Great
Neck Record that until safeguards are in place for any such released data, the
school district will not submit any personal student information at this time.

The school board’s initial vote came
at a February school board public action meeting. It was a school board
supported resolution to the New York State Education Department, a resolution
that “demands that data on Great Neck students not be transmitted to any third
party provider.”

Then, just a week ago, Cuomo
announced that the state should no longer utilize the InBloom database, as had
been recommended in January. InBloom, a non-profit group, was creating a
statewide education database, reportedly to attempt to help to fix the state’s
implementation of the highly controversial Common Core.

Dr. Dolan said that this turn of
events was possibly the result of letters sent to the state, such as the one
the Great Neck School District sent in opposition to InBloom and any such
agency. “I think the letters got their attention,” he told the Record.

Dr. Dolan emphasized that at this time, the school district
will not be releasing any such information to anyone.